PACE announces Startup Weekend University of Hawai'i winners

Startup Weekend University of Hawaii ‘ohana gather at the closing of the event.

Best Presentation team: Timple

Judges' Choice team: Education Energy

Most Likely to Succeed team: My Perfect Day

After cases of energy drinks, gallons of coffee, hundreds of customer feedback, and hours of intense business modeling, the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa's Pacific Asian Center for Entrepreneurship (PACE) announced the winners of the first Startup Weekend University of Hawaiʻi (SWUH).

Winners were announced in the following three categories on November 18:

Judges’ ChoiceTeam Name: Education Energy–a web site that harnesses the resource of students’ school projects and brings organizations and students together.Team members: Jonathan Fritzler, John Kwong, Kyle Loo, Jon Shear and Michael Sullivan

These teams were selected based on their business model concept, marketplace due diligence, execution/implementation, pitch and team. The winning teams will receive co-working space and a cloud plan of virtual office services, a chance to pitch to the directors of an accelerator and a hybrid incubator, a chance to pitch to a microloan board, mentorship from two PACE board members, and a lot of high-fives. In addition, the Most Likely to Succeed team will compete against 130 cities in Global Startup Battle, the largest entrepreneurial competition in the world, where winners receive a prize package valued at more than $50,000.

“We were pleased to see so many students and members of the community come to the event with innovative ideas. The weekend really put the teams to the test and it was fascinating to watch the evolution of the idea from Friday night to Sunday night,” said Susan Yamada, executive director of the Pacific Asian Center for Entrepreneurship. “The experience wasn’t about building a startup but it was being in a startup environment.”

SWUH is organized locally by PACE. Fifty participants and 30 coaches devoted their time and energy to the event, which ran from November 16 to 18, 2012, at the UH Manoa Campus Center and the Shidler College of Business. All-Pro Hawaiʻi, UH Mānoa's College of Engineering and College of Natural Sciences, Debra Guerin Beresini, Goodsill Anderson Quinn & Stifel, Kinetiq Labs, Resource Suites, Shan Steinmark, The Upside Fund and XLR8HI were sponsors of the event.